The crypto market seems to be on an upswing, largely due to Bitcoin’s return to previous heights. Loosely mimicking Bitcoin’s trajectory since late September, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency and number one altcoin, ETH is up to $3800 today. Experts are of the view that the Ethereum network is about to see exponential growth. This seems plausible looking at the increase in Ethereum case uses and the demand for Ethereum-based products.

The past few months have brought an increase in Layer-2 protocols which have brought about increased demand for Ethereum block space.

Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of US Global Investors and Executive Chairman of the HIVE Blockchain expressed his views on Ethereum. He points out the relationship between BTC and ETH prices and likens it to that of gold and silver.

When gold goes to a 50-day moving average, and it goes up 15-20 percent, silver all of a sudden surges 30 percent. Ethereum is to Bitcoin — is like silver is to gold. Bitcoin makes the big charge, then all of a sudden Ethereum explodes to the upside. That’s the sweet spot for us […] It is a smart contract — Ethereum has many more uses than Bitcoin does, the same way silver does — 20 percent of demand for silver is for solar energy. It has a green footprint, viruses can’t live on silver, it has many medical uses, etc., The same thing with Ethereum, it is used for DeFi, for NFT’S. It’s a much more important backbone for growth in blockchain.

The general mood around Bitcoin is that it is headed for a major bull-run by the end of the year. In fact, crypto-Twitter is already calling this month “Uptober”. If this relationship between the top two currencies is anything to go by, then ETH is also headed for a major break.

Another reason to believe ETH is about to explode is the renewed interest in decentralised finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens. A large portion of DeFi and NFT products and services are based on the Ethereum network. Unlike the Bitcoin network, whose activity has decreased tremendously, the Etherum network has seen a great increase in activity. The link between Ethereum price and the increase in uses and applications like NFTs, DeFi platforms decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts is undoubtable.

Ultimately, the basic principle of “supply and demand” could be the final and deciding factor in ETH prices. Ethereum is set to move from the proof-of-work protocol to proof-stake by next year. This means that miners will not mine in an energy-intensive way anymore.

Staking will be used to ensure the safety of the blockchain. Many are of the view that this is what will increase ETH’s value. They believe that the idea of steady returns guaranteed by staking and the relatively quick payback period will maintain the hype around the altcoin and this will translate into high demand.

Der Beitrag Is Ethereum going to continue being the Silver to Bitcoin’s gold? erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell believes that a digital dollar would eliminate the need for other digital currencies. He made these comments while addressing the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. He presented this as a reason for the U.S Central Bank to issue a digital currency. When asked if a central bank-issued digital currency would be a more viable option to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, Powell responded,

I think that may be the case and I think that’s one of the arguments that are offered in favor of digital currency. That, in particular, you wouldn’t need stablecoins, you wouldn’t need cryptocurrencies if you had a digital U.S. currency – I think that’s one of the stronger arguments in its favor.

Powell also revealed that the Fed would soon release a paper discussing the potential merits and demerits of a CBDC.

The need for better regulation of stablecoins

Speaking on stablecoins, Powell stressed that if they are to be part of the payment system, there is a need for stricter regulation. Tether, currently the most valuable stablecoin and third-largest cryptocurrency by market value was brought up by Rep. Anthony Gonzalez. It had previously been asserted that each coin was backed by a single dollar. It has since been revealed that Tether is backed largely by commercial paper or debts.

In response, Powell remarked that usually, such assets were very liquid but that had changed during the recent financial crisis. He likened stablecoins to bank deposits and money market funds, adding that they needed to be treated as such.

We have a pretty strong regulatory framework around bank deposits, for example, or money market funds. That doesn’t exist currently for stablecoins, and if they’re going to be a significant part of the payments universe – which we don’t think crypto assets will be but stablecoins might be – then we need an appropriate regulatory framework

His comments were in tandem with those of Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard who, in May, expressed concern that the increase in digital currency options could lead to a “fragmentation” of the payments system, to the detriment of many households and businesses.

Opposition from the financial elite

The idea of a digital dollar does not sit well in some circles. A digital dollar would mean a reduction and in some cases, a complete elimination of some banking fees. Banks in the United States make about $17 trillion from deposits and billions from overdraft and account maintenance fees per year. A CBDC would be a threat to their business.

Greg Baer, head of the Bank Policy Institute has warned that businesses and individuals would find it more difficult and expensive to access loans should the central bank be given such “extraordinary power”.

Another expert, Professor Eswar Prasad of Cornell University, who is set to release a book on digital currencies in September theorized that in case of a financial meltdown similar to that of 2008, the digital currency might “actually make matters worse”.

Meanwhile, Powell also addressed concerns regarding rising inflation rates, maintaining his view that this was a temporary situation. According to the Fed chairman, inflation will return to pre-pandemic levels once some markets return to their normal conditions.

Related: Bulls in agony as Bitcoin slips below $32K but new CPI report reveals US economy is strained

Der Beitrag The digital dollar will eliminate the need for other digital currencies: US Fed Chairman erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

NASA’s Space Shuttle launch countdown used to begin 40 hours before liftoff. That is about where IOTA is in relation to the launch of their new network, Chrysalis. On Monday, the IOTA Foundation reassured the community that the weather looks great, and they are “ALL SYSTEMS GO.” Users can migrate tokens anytime this year, and so far, about $500 million in IOTA tokens have been transferred. For users whose tokens are on exchanges, the exchange will handle the migration.

The ‘best version of IOTA’

This is not simply a new protocol, explained Dominik Schiener on Monday’s AMA. It represents “the best version of IOTA” with reusable addresses, UTXO, programmable transactions, and readiness for several key application layers including streams, identity, access, and smart contracts – all to be added over the coming weeks and months. Schiener encouraged people to be building applications on IOTA since with Chrysalis, the core protocol will be production-ready for any business applications.

Some will argue that this progress may not be as big a deal, especially since IOTA will still have a Coordinator – a node that issues transaction milestones as part of the confirmation process and is a potential single point of failure. Killing the Coordinator, known as Coordicide, is thus critical for IOTA. Hence, within weeks of launching Chrysalis, a Coordinator-free test network – dubbed Nectar -will be coming online.

One community member asked today whether any feedback from Nectar could possibly delay, or even cancel Coordicide on the Mainnet. Schiener emphatically replied, “Nothing will prevent Coordicide.” He explained that the path to Coordicide was backed by very sound theory and research.

We have published dozens of papers on Coordicide, and have already done the first practical implementation in the GoShimmer network, and they have already proven most of the components of Coordicide, including mana which is working very well.

So, what will be the purpose of Nectar?

Nectar will expose the Coordinator-free network to attacks! Bounties will be offered to anyone who can exploit weaknesses within the Nectar network. Daily exposure to attacks is what hardens a permissionless network, Schiener explained. Fundamentally, a network like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or IOTA is more secure than a permissioned network because it is battle-tested every day. There is a huge incentive to attack permissionless networks, and the constant attack exposes any flaws quickly.

Chrysalis will have the protection of the Coordinator, but Nectar will be fully decentralized. It will be trading test tokens rather than real IOTA tokens so that flaws can be worked out before implementing Coordicide on the Mainnet. Research will be done on the Nectar network to ascertain the behavior of the network with more community nodes, and to refine how the reputation system, called Mana, will work “in the wild.”

Mana – the answer to Sybil attacks

Mana is IOTA’s answer to Sybil attacks, wherein a malicious actor could try to gain control of the network by having 51% of the hash power. In a network like Bitcoin, it is very cost-prohibitive to try to acquire enough computing power to carry out a 51% attack as it is protected by Proof of Work. Some blockchains instead use Proof of Stake, where nodes must have a certain quantity of tokens pledged in order to participate in voting. With a network like IOTA, where anyone can run a node and there are no mining fees and no costly work, it seems like a bad actor could create a large number of IOTA nodes and spam the network to slow it down or attempt double spends or other attacks.

Indeed, such attacks are part of why the IOTA network has been redesigned from the ground up. The solution IOTA crafted is unique: a reputation coin awarded to nodes as they do honest work. This token cannot be bought or sold, and it evaporates over time or is lost quickly if a node misbehaves. Anyone can run a node and earn Mana by processing transactions quickly and honestly. Having Mana guarantees a node a percentage of the network’s bandwidth, assuring a business that they can always process their transactions quickly, even in times of congestion.

A node owner can increase Mana by processing more transactions, as well as by holding coins and pledging the mana from their coins to specific nodes. This may lead to businesses investing in IOTA tokens, or “renting Mana” by paying token holders to pledge their Mana to them (useful if the business is unable to hold cryptocurrency but needs more bandwidth).

Solving the cryptocurrency trilemma

Since Mana is lost very quickly by not being a helpful, cooperative, altruistic node, any attempt to spam the network, approve double spends, or carry out other attacks will lead to a sudden loss in influence. Hence, even if someone could afford 51% of the network’s hash power, they would not have 51% of the Mana—even if they controlled half the tokens – and whatever Mana they could gain would only be maintained by acting honestly and for the benefit of the network.

In this way, the IOTA network will achieve decentralization without the costly work required in the Bitcoin network or the expensive commitment of Proof of Stake. After testing Nectar over several months, Coordicide will be implemented in the Mainnet around the end of the year. If successful, IOTA will solve the cryptocurrency Trilemma – namely it will be the first decentralized ledger technology that is scalable, feeless, and fully decentralized. In the meantime, the IOTA community is celebrating the impending launch of Chrysalis, where IOTA starts to unfold its wings.

T-48 hours for the launch of the #Chrysalis network.

We are entering into a new era with #IOTA. Are you ready? pic.twitter.com/Msw27xB3Al

— Dominik Schiener ? ? ? (@DomSchiener) April 26, 2021

Der Beitrag IOTA Chrysalis launch – one day to go to the landmark upgrade: In-depth look erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

More and more investors feel attracted and shift their speculations from Bitcoin to Ethereum. No wonder, because Bitcoin is pretty much over the top. At over 40,000 $ per Bitcoin, it has become quite expensive, whereas Ether – the exact name for the currency – currently costs around 1,500 $.

And thus, Ethereum is also quite expensive relative to Redcoin, Dogecoin and other trendy currencies. Its popularity has meanwhile brought it all the way to the casino market. Best Ethereum Casinos allow easy, fast and secure payment.

The concept behind Ethereum

Ethereum – just like Bitcoin – is supposed to contribute to the simplification of digital processes and data transfer. The current system seems slow, outdated and in need of an overhaul. The developers of Ethereum wanted to establish a new system that makes contract processing even easier. This is possible due to the elimination of central instances.

Even better, Ethereum’s latest developments show that this is not the only issue. The system behind the coveted cryptocurrency is currently planning and implementing the creation of countless apps relevant to everyday life. With their help, we can quickly execute processes and save time. What is special about the apps supported by Ethereum is that they are safe from fraud and manipulation. They can be considered unmodifiable after creation. At the same time, they do not require maintenance or control by a single person. This saves costs and personnel.

Ethereum and the Blockchain

Just like Bitcoin, Ether also uses the blockchain technology. As the name suggests, the blockchain consists of blocks and chains. Both are connected to each other in alternation. Inside the blocks is the data. The confirmation of the entire blocks leads to the transmission of data and finally to the further establishment of the blocks. Behind each block are specific codes. Hacking these codes and thus accessing them illegally is almost impossible.

The blockchain publicly records transactions with Ether, whereby the participants remain anonymous. Only the transactions are transparent. If contracts are made, all participants must agree. If this does not happen, the respective contract does not come into effect. Verification of the participants takes place automatically. At the same time, the data is no longer sent to a central network and only reaches the final instance after the verification.

By comparison, well-known apps for chatting use a central structure. Anyone who sends a chat message first sends it to the central office. From there, it reaches the actual recipient. If someone hacks into the control center, personal data is lost. This does not happen with the blockchain.

Where Ethereum will be used

Ethereum makes sense wherever the blockchain technology is in demand. The financial system is potentially benefiting from it. Our banking system is developing enormously with the use of blockchain.

Branches will become superfluous and the savings will go to the customers. Account maintenance fees will then only be in the low range and transactions will not require a bank card or a cumbersome on-site account opening.

However, blockchain is not only the future of banks. It is also in demand in the education sector, travel providers will opt for the technology and even in medicine, people are already thinking about its integration.

Buying Ethereum? Here’s what to watch out for!

Of course, you cannot buy Ethereum in a classic supermarket. After all, it is a digital currency that, unlike FIAT money, cannot be purchased physically. The currency resides in the blockchain. It cannot be detached from it. To participate in the market, an account with a crypto exchange or within a crypto marketplace is required. Those who want to focus specifically on Ethereum must choose an exchange offering this cryptocurrency.

After registration, it is possible to buy Ethereum in exchange for euros or dollars. In doing so, interested parties buy the crypto coins from the exchange directly or from a private seller. The latter cannot set the price individually. The value is valid everywhere and is based on the current price developments. Fluctuations are normal for cryptos, but the better known crypto becomes and the more investors are involved, the more stable the value will get.

After the purchase, the buyer should open his wallet. The wallet should be created in advance and is accompanied by a private key. All encryptions are for security purposes. Any codes and keywords should be kept in a safe place. Some people purchase USB hardware for this purpose. It is particularly secure and especially interesting for those buyers who enter with larger sums.

After safely storing the coins in the wallet, it is necessary to wait. Every day brings changes. Buyers should constantly keep themselves informed about developments. Only in this way can they profit from the advantages of Ether and other cryptocurrencies in the long term.

Der Beitrag Possible uses of Ethereum: Will it be more popular than Bitcoin soon? erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

Development activity is the raisin d’etre for blockchain platforms. Those projects that manage to attract developers often find it a snowball effect, where a few successful launches serve as a showcase of the platform’s potential, which attracts more developers. 

One example of where this is visible is in the Ardor blockchain, which launched in early 2018. Over the last three years, Jelurida, the Swiss software development company that operates Ardor, has been working hard to attract developers. As Ardor now supports a multitude of real-world use cases, the work has paid off, with more activity on the way in 2021. 

What is Ardor? 

Ardor is a multi-chain blockchain platform, which operates a parent-child chain structure. The project has its roots in a predecessor platform called Nxt. Nxt launched in 2013 as a second-generation cryptocurrency designed to support additional features beyond a simple store of value. It was the first project to use a pure proof-of-stake consensus model. 

Nxt has been in continuous operation since 2013. Still, over the years, many of the challenges of a linear blockchain became evident, as they have with other legacy platforms such as Ethereum. Requiring users to own a single token to transact is somewhat restrictive, and having all nodes processing all transactions results in blockchain bloat as the transaction count becomes ever-larger. Furthermore, there are limited customization options. 

In 2016, the developers of Nxt formed Jelurida and started to work on Ardor to solve these challenges. Ardor’s multi-chain structure means that a developer can issue their own tokens on a child chain, and users aren’t required to hold the native ARDR token to participate. The platform continuously prunes transactions to avoid bloating, using hashes to leave a lightweight evidential trail that transactions took place. Furthermore, Ardor’s child chains are entirely customizable to any specific application. 

The team at Jelurida even went a step further and built Ignis as Ardor’s main child chain. Ignis offers a set of ready-made applications and features that can be used out-of-the-box or replicated onto any Ardor child chain. These include a coin and asset exchange, voting system, marketplace, monetary system, and account and transaction control mechanisms. 

Notable Developments

Achieving a balance between ready-made features and near-limitless customization options has paid off for Ardor. The platform has become a hub of development activity, with numerous applications gaining traction. Here’s a small selection. 

Treecoin

Treecoin is a Swiss-based project developing a reforestation initiative that will provide profits to investors in a sustainable and responsible way. Paraguay is one of the worst-hit countries in the world for deforestation, having lost 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) of forests to agriculture between 1987 and 2012. Furthermore, there’s a massive demand for biofuels, and timber, in particular, that’s putting further strain on the remaining forests. 

Treecoin aims to redress the balance, using the Ardor blockchain to source investment from a regulated Swiss token sale. Funds raised will be directed into an initiative to purchase the land, labor, and equipment necessary to plant 10 million fast-growing eucalyptus trees in Paraguay. 

By reinvesting half of the profits from selling timber into further planting efforts, the Treecoin team estimates it can generate $1.1 billion profit over the next 23 years. It has partnered with a local firm, Grupo Empresarial La Rivera S.A. Paraguay, which already manages 3,000 hectares of sustainable Paraguayan forest land.  

Using the Ardor blockchain means investors will have full transparency regarding the movement of their Treecoin funds. 

HotCity

HotCity is also a sustainability project, although this one aims to recycle waste heat. The project is a collaboration led by the Austrian Institute of Technology. It uses the Ardor blockchain to gamify the process of crowdsourcing waste heat outlets that will be redirected back into the energy grid. Along with Jelurida, other tech firms are also involved in developing the front end application, gamification metrics, and providing expertise in energy systems. 

Citizens using the HotCity app are rewarded in Ardor-based tokens for their contribution to recycling waste heat. They can submit photos, Google Map coordinates, or include details of on-site inspections. 

The project received a grant worth €310,000 ($370,000) from the Austrian government for a trial in Vienna. If it’s deemed successful, it has strong potential to gain adoption elsewhere in Austria or beyond. 

Triffic

Triffic is a deceptively simple concept that uses gamification to get people moving around in their local neighborhood by rewarding them with Triffic’s Ardor-based GPS tokens. The rewards are funded by an advertising model that helps smaller local businesses target ads to people in the vicinity of their premises. 

It works similarly to Pokémon Go or geocaching, where a user can find beacons on a map that means they can level up their token rewards. Tokens may also be redeemed for special offers or promotions offered by the businesses using Triffic to attract more footfall. 

Triffic went live on the Ardor mainnet in 2020 and plans to launch a new user interface in the first quarter of 2021. 

Attracting development for real-world use cases is the most critical success factor for any platform. Speculative token prices may generate short-term headlines, but legitimate applications have long-term staying power and the potential for more mainstream adoption. In the three years since it launched, by attracting legitimate, value-based use cases, Ardor has demonstrated that it’s here for the long haul. 

Der Beitrag Ardor – A multi-chain platform with a multitude of use cases erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

Komodo is the most advanced blockchain platform in the world.

Based on this pompous statement, you might think that Komodo is just another scam coin who makes big promises but can’t keep them. However, this is not the case with Komodo. As soon as you get to know the Komodo Blockchain and the Komodo technology, you will notice that Komodo actually provides a very advanced and innovative blockchain technology.

What is Komodo?

The Komodo Blockchain, like so many projects, has its origin in the Bitcoin Blockchain, at least indirectly. Komodo is a fork from Zcash (ZEC), which split off from Bitcoin in October 2016 to solve the problem of Bitcoin’s lack of anonymity. Accordingly, Komodo also has the privacy features of Zcash (such as Zero Knowledge Proofs). However, the beginnings of Komodo date further back.

Already in 2014, the inventor of Komodo James “jl777c” Lee recognized a problem with blockchain technology and therefore developed a proxy token gateway on the NXT platform. This allowed NXT to be exchanged for BTC and other popular cryptocurrencies. Out of this idea “jl777c” wrote the “Blockchain Decaration of Independence” in February 2016 and founded the Komodo platform. You may have guessed the problem James Lee wanted to address by now.

Each blockchain is autonomous and cannot communicate with other blockchains. For example, at that time no Bitcoin (BTC) could be directly transferred from one person to another against Litecoin (LTC), i.e. peer-to-peer, without there being an intermediary (an exchange). James Lee found this problem unacceptable in a world of decentralized cryptocurrencies. Komodo compares this problem with the situation of mainframes at that time, which also only functioned self-sufficiently.

As a result, Lee developed a multi-blockchain architecture that allows projects to create their own blockchains and host initial coin offerings (ICO) without having to use the token of the Komodo platform (such as Ethereum or EOS). The “Smart Chains”, as Komodo calls the blockchains within its ecosystem, exist independently of Komodo, but can communicate with each other.

The Smart Chains are “turing-complete”, so that everything imaginable can be encoded into a Smart Chain. In addition, the blockchains have their own coin to pay for transactions, have their own consensus and support an unlimited number of smart chains. More about this later.

Achievements of Komodo

After Komodo was able to earn a total of 2,639 BTC in October 2016 as part of an ICO, the Komodo Mainnet was launched in January 2017. Since then, Komodo has released numerous features that have contributed to the interoperability of the blockchain economy:

• March 2017: Release of the first rudimentary version of Komodo’s Decentralized Exchange (DEX), enabling command line peer-to-peer swaps between Bitcoin protocol-based coins.
• October 2017: Integration of Atomic Swaps into the Electrum SPV Wallet from Bitcoin.
• February 2018: Atomic swaps between Bitcoin-based coins and ERC20 tokens (between 95% of all coins and tokens)
• July 2018: Introduction of Multi-Chain-Syncing and Cross-Chain Interoperability Linking
• July 2019: Launch of the public beta version of AtomicDEX, the first DEX based entirely on Atomic swaps.

Komodo is therefore a project that takes a completely different approach to Ethereum, EOS or Tron, for example. The developers around James Lee attach great importance to interoperability. Overall, the Komodo project is not only characterized by interoperability, but also pursues four other basic principles:

• Interoperability,
• Security,
• Scalability and
• Adaptability.

Central functions of Komodo

interoperability

As we have already explained, the Komodo Project is committed to unifying the Blockchain ecosystem. But what is Komodo doing to advance its own platform in the form of interoperability? Each blockchain within the Komodo ecosystem can exist independently of each other without being dependent on the Komodo blockchain or the KMD coin.

At the same time, the smart chains are compatible with other smart chains within the ecosystem and can therefore communicate. This means that cross-chain smart contracts are possible. This allows any Komodo-based project to exchange data via the Komodo blockchain with any other smart chain and solve problems. Regardless of this, the transaction fees are always paid with the native coin of each smart chain, since each blockchain has its own decentralized network and consensus mechanism. This ensures the autonomy of each Smart Chain.

Source: https://komodoplatform.com/technology/

To make the creation of Smart Chains as easy and fast as possible, Komodo provides the Antara Framework. This provides each Smart Chain with a library of modules, whereby the desired modules can be activated and deactivated. According to the Komodo website, “specially developed Smart Chains with any number of Seed Nodes and Mining Nodes can be customized and launched in minutes on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace”.

In addition, Komodo also offers white label products, including a Multi-Coin Wallet, a DEX and a Block Explorer, to accelerate the introduction of smart chains to the market. The following video shows how a blockchain can be created in just 5 minutes.

Safety and security

In terms of security, Komodo can provide a “Bitcoin-level security” with the anonymity of Zcash. The basis for security is the Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW), which connects to the hash power of the Bitcoin network. This works by storing a backup of the KMD blockchain in each block of the Bitcoin network (every ten minutes). This security mechanism is provided by the globally distributed network of 64 community notary nodes.

This process is therefore very desirable, since Bitcoin has by far the largest hash power of all blockchain networks. All UTXO-based smart chains can benefit from this security mechanism.

Scalability

Another central requirement of Komodo is scalability that sets no limits for the applications on the platform. For this purpose Komodo has developed the Multi-Chain-Syncing-Technology, whose idea is not new in the crypto-community, but hardly implemented better by any other project than Komodo. The Smart Chains are (simply put) nothing more than sidechains.

As a project grows and an app needs more resources, an additional smart chain can easily be created. This allows projects to extend to additional blockchains to increase scalability. Theoretically, Komodo’s multi-chain architecture enables the creation of an infinite number of smart chains.

Source: https://komodoplatform.com/komodo-platform-new-scalability-solution/

The Komodo team has thus developed a scalability solution which, according to its own statements, clearly outperforms the competition. Smart chain technology is expected to reach one million transactions per second in the future, with each transaction containing up to 100 payments, which means that Komodo can theoretically process up to 100 million payments per second.

For the introduction of multi-chain syncing technology in July 2018, a test was carried out that proved that Komodo can process over 20,000 transactions per second (with 1,024 blockchains). Multi-chain syncing technology creates a fully interoperable ecosystem with a variety of smart chains. All smart chains process transactions simultaneously and are synchronized with all other blockchains in order to achieve interoperability of the smart chains.

Adaptability

As described above, the Antara Framework provides a fully modular library for developing smart chains. Each blockchain on the Komodo platform can be adapted to the needs of the project, whether it is the consensus algorithm, block reward, optional private transactions or block time.

The KMD-Token

KMD is the native token and an integral part of the Komodo network. The Komodo consensus mechanism would not be operational without KMD.

The Komodo price reached its all-time high on December 22, 2017, when the price rose to USD 12.23. The Komodo price was trading at a high of USD 1.2 billion.

Komodo has a fixed total volume of KMD 200 million, of which 100 million are pre-mined and distributed through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Of these 100 million, 90 million were distributed to ICO investors and 10 million were set aside for the future development of the Komodo platform. The remaining 100 million KMDs are decomposed by Komodo using the proof-of-work algorithm.

It is important to know that Komodo users with addresses above 10 KMD (as a single UTXO) can receive a 5% reward. The reward, however, only accrues up to 1 month after a transaction to reward active users. Put simply, the calculation of rewards depends on an optional transaction parameter called `nLockTime`. However, most exchanges and wallets do not set this parameter, which is why they do not pay any rewards.

Wallets that support the Reward are the Agama Desktop and Mobile Wallet, the Komodo CLI Wallet and the KomodoOceanQT Wallet. You can check your balance on the following websites:

• https://dexstats.info/rewards.php
• https://www.atomicexplorer.com/#/rewards

Conclusion: Is Komodo worth an investment?

Komodo is another blockchain that provides an ecosystem for ICO alignment and application development. This puts Komodo in a category and in competition with Ethereum, EOS, Tron, Cardano or Lisk, to name but a few examples. Although the competition is fierce, Komodo can differentiate itself from the competition with features such as multi-chain syncing technology, smart chains, delayed proof of work and Atomic swaps.

Whether this will be sufficient for Komodo to prevail against its competitors and achieve mass acceptance remains to be seen. A scalability of 1 million transactions per second is great from a technical point of view. However, it also requires a large number of users for the technology to be used at all. In this respect, the official launch of AtomicDEX and its development could have a significant impact on the success of the Komodo project.

The following video offers a good summary of the Komodo project, in which the anonymous founder of Komodo talks about the project and its goals in an interview.

Der Beitrag What is Komodo (KMD) – A Guide to the Komodo Blockchain erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

Ravencoin is a cryptocurrency and peer-to-peer network that aims to enable the transfer of assets from one party to another through an application-specific blockchain. Thus, the project deliberately limits itself to a very specific application case and wants to differentiate itself from other blockchains. Unlike Ethereum, Ravencoin does not seek to be a comprehensive solution as a “world computer”. Instead, Ravencoin wants to limit itself to one application and perfect it.

Ravencoin doesn’t reinvent the wheel, because there are already several token standards on the Ethereum blockchain (like ERC20, ERC721 and ERC223, to name only a few). However, the Ravencoin team argues that the lack of specialization leads to problems that are of great importance for the transfer of assets.

The biggest problem identified by the Ravencoin team is that the exchange of an asset requires the base currency (e.g. ether) to pay for the transaction. If the network fees are high, the exchange of the asset is also unnecessarily costly. Therefore, Ravencoin wants to provide a network that can transfer all real and digital goods and is optimized for this.

In a medium post from November 2017, the Ravencoin Core Team refers to the emergence of the name of the cryptocurrency, which was created in connection with the series “Game of Thrones”:

In the fictional world of Westeros, ravens are used as messengers who carry statements of truth. Ravencoin is a use case specific blockchain designed to carry statements of truth about who owns what assets.

Use cases of Ravencoin

Like Ethereum, Ravencoin is specifically designed to enable the output of tokens on the Ravencoin blockchain and the creation of custom tokens “within minutes”. These tokens can have all conceivable properties. They can be limited in quantity, named or issued as a security or collector’s item. As Ravencoin explained via Twitter, “everything” can be developed in the form of Ravencoin tokens.

You can build whatever you want on Ravencoin or using Ravencoin assets.

— Project Raven / RVN / Ravencoin (@Ravencoin) October 13, 2019

Due to the blockchain technology the tokens are not forgeable and comparable with legal documents, which verify the authenticity of the assets. The assets are secured by a certain amount of RVN. An RVN transaction fee is paid to perform a transfer. The ledger is then updated with the new ownership.

The possible applications are enormous. Below we have listed a few possible application scenarios:

• Securities tokens in which the shares are represented by a token
• Company shares with a built-in dividend capacity in RVN
• tokens representing a coop, limited partnership or profit-sharing platform
• Tickets for events such as concerts, sports events, etc.
• digital assets, such as gaming items, collectibles (such as crypto kitties)
• Access token for using a service (e.g. licenses)
• land deeds and other documents, e.g. on the ownership of precious metals (such as gold and silver)

The cryptocurrency Ravencoin

Technical basics

Ravencoin was created from a fork of the Bitcoin code and was launched on January 3, 2018, the ninth anniversary of the launch of Bitcoin. It’s an open source project that prides itself on being a decentralized development community organized in the spirit of the Cypherpunks to write code that “makes the world a better place.

Ravencoin promises nothing and asks for nothing in return.

In the spirit of the cypherpunk manifesto, we create ideas, design protocol and write code to make the world better.
We give the code away for free.
You can use it or not use it, change it, fork or alter it.

It’s yours.

— Project Raven / RVN / Ravencoin (@Ravencoin) October 11, 2019

In contrast to most Altcoins, Ravencoin did not perform an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), did not operate a pre-mine and did not install any master nodes. Besides the possibility to create tokens, the Ravencoin developers have made some further changes to the Bitcoin code.

Ravecoin mining

The biggest change is the introduction of the new mining algorithm, X16R, which constantly switches between 16 different algorithms. The goal is to maintain the decentralization of the network. The mining algorithm should prevent the centralization of the network (as with Bitcoin) by introducing Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The Ravencoin team has committed itself to this.

As early as October 1, 2019, the Ravencoin developers had to take action and adapt the mining algorithm to prevent the centralization of mining, after the network had been controlled by a single ASIC miner to almost 50%. As a user in a medium post proved, a single miner managed to mine up to 45% of all Ravencoin blocks in July 2019.

To restore ASIC resistance, the second version of the algorithm, X16Rv2, was implemented on October 1, 2019 with Ravencoin Software 2.5.1, ensuring block mining and network operation by GPU owners.

In terms of mining, it is also interesting to note that Ravencoin performs a Ravencoin “Halving” every 2,100,000 blocks, reducing the reward per block (like Bitcoin) from 5,000 RVN to 2,500 RVN. Since 2,100,000 blocks, with a block time of one minute, corresponds to about 1458.3333333 days, which is the equivalent of about 3.99 years, the next (and first) halving is expected to take place in January 2022.

Overstocks Investment in Ravencoin

Ravencoin first gained attention when Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock, announced in February 2018 in an interview with Business Insider that his company had made a multi-million dollar investment in the previously unknown crypto startup. Byrne is considered Ravencoin’s biggest supporter and continues to promote the company’s potential.

A subsidiary of Overstock, Medici Ventures, also made Ravencoin’s first major token transfer to Ravencoin possible. The company acquired a 29% stake in Chainstone Labs through a digital token transfer through Ravencoin Blockchain, equivalent to $3.6 million. While the token was not publicly offered, the transaction demonstrates the potential of Ravencoin Blockchain.

Bruce Fenton, CEO of Chainstone Labs, commented:

Ravencoin is an ideal protocol and chain to use for this security token. The aim of Ravencoin is to do one thing and do it well: help users issue tokens and digital assets securely. Tokens, particularly securities tokens, are a promising area for blockchain technology

How convinced Patrick Byrne of Ravencoin is, for example, he also showed very clearly at the Blockchain World Conference in August 2018:

Ravencoin Roadmap

The current roadmap of Ravencoin can be found on GitHub. At the time of writing (October 2019), Ravencoin has completed four of eight development phases. The next phases include the following enhancements (in brief):

• Phase 5 – Messaging
  Authorized senders should be able to send messages to token owners.
• Phase 6 – Voting
  A voting mechanism is to be implemented at protocol level. The coordination is done by creating and distributing parallel tokens. These tokens can be sent to RVN addresses to record a vote.
• Phase 7 – Compatibility mode
  Enables newly created tokens to be displayed exactly like RVN or BTC for integration on exchanges and in wallets.
• Phase 8 – Mobile Wallets, that are compatible with a Mnemonic Seed.

Conclusion: Is Ravencoin worth an investment?

From our point of view, Ravencoin is a project with a lot of potential. While many cryptocurrencies want to compete Ethereum as the “best smart contract platform”, Ravencoin focuses on a niche, the tokenization and transfer of assets.

As a still young project, Ravencoin has not yet achieved huge successes and is in a market segment with strong competition from Ethereum, Cardano, EOS, Waves or Bytom. However, the Ravencoin project is supported by an active community and the support of Overstock CEO, Patrick Byrne.

It remains to be seen whether Ravencoin (RVN) will prevail in the growing asset tokenization market in the long run or whether Ethereum will dominate this market.

Ravencoin can be traded and bought on a variety of cryptocurrency exchanges. These include Binance and Bittrex. You can find instructions and a guide on how and where to buy Ravencoin at this link (click here!). If you are looking for a Ravencoin Wallet, we recommend our Ravencoin Wallet Guide.

Der Beitrag What is Ravencoin (RVN)? A Guide to the Blockchain and the RVN Token erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

In particular, larger analysis companies, but also individual persons, can link individual transactions with each other and identify related payments and thus track the activities of the Bitcoin user. By linking the transaction data with the personal data stored on cryptocurrency exchanges, even the user can possibly be fully identified.

This problem can be avoided by Bitcoin-Mixer. However, mixers have some disadvantages. For example, the user must trust the provider of the tool to return the BTC. In addition, users of mixers must trust that the provider will not pass on the user data and that their own transaction will not be associated with criminal transactions.

What is ZCash?

Due to the problem described above, Zcash (ZEC) was developed by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company and forked by the Bitcoin Blockchain on October 28, 2016. Zcash is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that belongs to the Privacy Coins, such as Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), Bytecoin (BCN), Verge (XVG), PIVX, GRIN and Bitcoin Private. This means that ZCash is a cryptocurrency which hides the data of its users and in particular the receiving address, the sender address and the transaction amount from the public.

Like Bitcoin, ZCash has a maximum supply of 21 million. At this point, however, the common features of the two cryptocurrencies already end. In addition to complete anonymity, the ZCash developers have made numerous other changes to the Bitcoin code:

• Consensus algorithm: With Equihash, a memory-oriented proof-of-work algorithm was implemented.
• Block time: The block interval target has been changed from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes.
• Mining Difficulty: ZCash has introduced a “gentle” difficulty adjustment algorithm based on DigiShield v3.
• Founder Reward: The Zcash team has introduced a Founder Reward equal to 20 percent of the Block Rewards for the developers who developed Zcash. This is used to fund ongoing development. In addition, the ZEC Foundation was established to manage the funds. After the first 4 years, the founder’s reward ends. From this point on, 100 percent will be distributed to the miners.

At the heart of the Zcash technology, however, are the so-called “zero-knowledge proofs”, which make it possible to validate transaction data without disclosing information about the amount and the parties involved.

The science behind Zcash

The technology of Zero Knowledge Proofs was developed in the 1980’s thanks to the work of MIT researchers Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali and Charles Rackoff and represented a scientific breakthrough in the field of cryptography. The Zero Knowledge Proofs solved the initially difficult to understand problem that knowledge about something is verifiable without revealing the information.

From a technical point of view, the problem can be described as two parties (the proofer and the verifier) communicating with each other and the proofer having to convince the verifier with a certain probability that he knows a secret without revealing any information himself. In order for the verifier to do this, Goldwasser, Micali and Rackoff have established three three conditions that must be fulfilled:

• Completeness: If a statement is true, the verifier can convince the verifier.
• Reliability: If the statement is false, the verifier cannot convince the verifier.
• Zero-Knowledge: If the statement is true, the verifier only learns that the statement is true.

Since this is very difficult to imagine, we would like to give you an example to illustrate the problem. Imagine that A is in possession of a secret piece of information that is of great interest to another person B. B first wants to proof that A actually owns the information before B pays for it. Since A cannot disclose the information before payment, otherwise B would have no reason to pay for the information, a Zero Knowledge Proof is required. This proves that the statement is true (“A owns the information”) without B knowing the secret.

Zcash uses a certain type of Zero Knowledge Proof called zk-SNARKs (“zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge”) to enable private transactions within the Zcash blockchain.

What is zk-SNARKs?

The technical basis for ZCash’s private transactions is therefore zk-SNARKs. Technology is fundamentally changing the way data is exchanged. As explained in the Zero Knowledge Proofs, privacy is achieved by keeping transactions encrypted, but using Zero Knowledge Proofs, authenticity can be verified.

Within the SNARK acronym, “Succinct” means that the evidence is smaller and can be verified faster than in older versions of zero knowledge protocols. “Non-interactive” means that the verifier does not have to exchange multiple messages (as in older versions), but only one proof.

The next two letters stand for “ARguments” and mean that dishonest actors have virtually no way to crack the encryption due to today’s limited computing power. This would require quantum computers, which many consider a threat to zk-SNARKs, Bitcoin and the blockchain in general. The last part of the acronym stands for “knowledge” and means that it is impossible for anyone to construct the evidence without actually possessing the information.

Generation of SNARK parameters = “toxic waste”

When using zk-SNARKs, however, there is a big problem: An initial creation is necessary, which is called a “parameter generation ceremony“. During this ceremony, the so-called public SNARK parameters, which are used to create and verify zero knowledge proofs, are created. The parameters are necessary to prove that a transaction was valid.

The generation of the “SNARK public parameters” is essentially equivalent to the generation of a public/private key pair in which the public key is retained and the private key is destroyed. The problem here is that the parameters are derived from some random numbers (which Zcash calls “toxic waste”) that could theoretically be used to reconstruct the parameters.

If this would succeed, the attackers could create a copy of the private key and thus fake Zcash. To prevent this, the Zcash developers have developed a Multi-Party Computing Protocol (MPC), in which a number of multiple participants participate in a ceremony that jointly create the parameters.

The first ceremony took place in October 2016 just before the launch of Zcash Sprout. It is important to note that the SNARK public parameters must be regenerated each time the network is upgraded. Accordingly, there was a second ceremony for the Sapling upgrade in 2018. With each further upgrade, the SNARK parameters must be created again.

The following video provides a detailed description of the first “Parameter Generation Ceremony”.

t addresses vs. z addresses

As explained before, the integration of zk-SNARKs allows to hide the address, quantity and memo data within the Zcash blockchain. Important to know at this point is that not every transaction in Zcash is anonymous. Zcash users have the choice of sending the ZEC transactions anonymously via so-called “shielded addresses” (z-addresses) or transparent (t-addresses). Many cryptocurrency exchanges only offer transparent transactions.

Both address types are interoperable. This means that ZEC can be sent from Z addresses to T addresses and vice versa. However, it is important to know the result which privacy implications bring. The following graphic provides an overview of this:

Source: https://z.cash/technology/

According to the graphic, Z-to-Z transactions and T-to-Z transactions are anonymous. Of particular interest is the option of sending ZEC from a transparent address to a shielded address. This interrupts the linkability between future transparent addresses. On the other hand, a Z-to-T transaction is transparent. The protection of privacy is thus lost.

Sapling Network Upgrade Changes

With the sapling network upgrade, Zcash developers developed new shielded addresses for improved efficiency and functionality. The old shielded addresses begin with a “zc” and the new shielded addresses of Sapling begin with a “zs”.

The motivation behind the sapling upgrade was that shielded addresses found little acceptance among wallet providers (you can find the best Zcash Wallet in our Zcash review) and exchanges. One reason for this was that the anonymous transactions before the introduction of Sapling required considerable computer resources.

Sapling has therefore reduced memory requirements by over 97 percent, from around 1.5 GB to 40 MB. This also reduced the processing time for the Zero Knowledge Proof by 90 percent, from 37 seconds to 2.3 seconds.

Source: https://electriccoin.co/blog/reducing-shielded-proving-time-in-sapling/

Who finances the further development of Zcash?

The Electric Coin Company is responsible for the further development of Zcash, which benefits from part of the “Founder Reward” and plans two network upgrades per year. The team consists of scientists and developers who invented the Zcash protocol. Lead figure and best-known developer is Zooko Wilcox, who co-founded Zcash in 2016.

The Electric Coin Company writes about its mission on the official website:

We believe that personal privacy is essential for core human values like dignity, intimacy, and ethics. […]

We are not the ultimate controllers of the network — that power lies in the hands of the users. We believe in decentralization, which promotes security and fairness. Every user of Zcash is a part of the network, and helps protect it against failure and corruption.

One controversy that has been more frequently criticized by the crypto community in the past is the “Founders Rewards”. Since Zcash did not conduct an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and there was no pre-mining, the 20 percent Block Reward is intended to secure Zcash’s future development. A total of 5.72 percent of all Zcash go to the founders, employees and consultants of Zcash. In addition, 1.65 percent will go to the investors who financed the establishment of Zcash.

The largest individual beneficiaries are the Electric Coin Company with 1.19 percent and the non-profit Zcash Foundation with 1.44 percent. Both institutions are responsible for the promotion, maintenance and further development of the Zcash protocol in the interest of all users.

Zcash Mining

Like Bitcoin, Zcash is a cryptocurrency that is mined. As explained earlier, Zcash uses the Equihash algorithm as the basis for his proof of work. This means that each time a block is added to the Zcash block chain, new ZECs are created. New blocks are created approximately every 150 seconds (2.5 minutes), with currently 12.5 ZEC generated per block.

Every 4 years, or more precisely every 840,000 blocks, a halving is carried out, with the exception of the first period, which is 850,000 blocks due to slow-start mining. The next Zcash Halving is expected to take place in October 2020. The block reward is halved from 12.5 to 6.25 ZEC (and then to 3.125 to 1.5625 and so on).

An important reason why Equihash was originally used by the inventors of Zcash was that Equihash was initially considered ASIC unfriendly. This should prevent a centralization of the Zcash network. In June 2018, however, the Chinese mining giant Bitmain announced the delivery of the first ASIC miners for Equihash.

In contrast to Monero (XMR), the Zcash developers did not modify the mining algorithm to prevent the ASICs from entering the ZEC network. Since then, the previously used graphics card miners are no longer competitive and the ZCash network is dominated by ASICs.

The ZCash Controversy

In particular, the first “Genesis Ceremony” caused an outcry within the crypto community because there was a lack of transparency and many observers saw the danger that an infinite number of ZCash could be created by the ceremony participants without anyone noticing.

The ceremony was then performed by Zooko Wilcox and five other people whom he considered to be “ethically sound”. Everyone was asked to generate a shard of the public-private key set. The basic idea of the ceremony was that only one “honest” participant was needed to destroy his part of the key so that the “toxic waste” would not be usable.

The only way to reconstruct the parameters would have been for all six participants to coordinate. If this had been the case, the persons would have been able to make a copy of the private key and thus fake Zcash. Due to the anonymity of Zcash, it would never have been noticed that ZEC had been created beyond the measure of 21 million.

That’s why the criticism from the community was so strong. Even though five participants are now known, including the renowned Bitcoin developer Peter Todd, the Genesis ceremony is still considered a weak point for Zcash.

Since the Genesis Block Ceremony, however, ZCash has performed other improved ceremonies (with every hard fork). To increase security, the Multi-Party Computing Protocol (MPC) has been extended to more people. The “Power of Tau Ceremony” as part of the sapling upgrade included around 90 different people who were affected by the SNARK public parameters. At this point at the latest, the ceremony should no longer be regarded as a weak point from our point of view.

Conclusion: Is ZCash worth an investment?

Although the ZEC price has fallen steadily since 2018, Zcash can be an interesting investment. The fall in the ZEC price should be seen in the context of the 2018 bear market and the Bitcoin dominance in 2019. From a purely technical point of view, Zcash has made significant progress during this time with both the Overwinter and the Sapling upgrade.

This allows shielded transactions to be sent in a few seconds with a fraction of the RAM previously required. This is another reason why ZCash, along with Monero and Dash, is one of the most popular privacy coins on the crypto market.

Despite the fact that Privacy Coin has a bad reputation in the mainstream media, Zcash, ahead of Monero and Dash, was listed on Gemini in May 2018 and on Coinbase in November 2018. As both platforms belong to the stricter cryptocurrency exchanges in the USA, Zcash (ZEC) received strong recognition as a result. The price reacted accordingly at the time. Nevertheless, a ban on anonymous crypt currencies has already been discussed in various countries around the world. Delistings might as well push the price down again.

On the other hand, following the example of Bitcoin, the next Zcash Halving could be a reason for a rising price of Zcash. Buying Zcash (click here to come to our tutorial!) is risky in any case, as with other cryptocurrencies.

A nice summary of what Zcash is and what it stands for can be found in the following Electric Coin Company video.

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Cosmos (ATOM) is a decentralized ecosystem of independent blockchains designed to create the next generation of Internet. Almost every crypto project develops its own blockchain. No matter whether Bitcoin, Ethereum or Ripple, the different technologies are usually not compatible with each other.

Instead of continuing this trend, Cosmos intends to connect all blockchain projects and develop an Internet of Blockchains (IoB). The different blockchains remain independent of each other, but retain the possibility of communication and the exchange of e.g. data and coins. To achieve interoperability, Cosmos (ATOM) uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus algorithm.

As if that wasn’t enough, Cosmos wants to continue solving the following blockchain technology problems:

1. Scalability: Although there are already first blockchains that can achieve high scalability, i.e. process a high number of transactions per second, this is still a major technical challenge. The Ethereum Blockchain can currently (as of August 2019) only process up to 15 transactions per second.
2. Ease of use: For developers it is relatively complicated when it comes to programming applications on the blockchain. Among other things, they are limited to a few programming languages and cannot implement automatic code execution.
3. Sovereignty: Each application is limited in its sovereignty. The applications depend on the environment (e.g. the Ethereum Blockchain). For example, if there is a bug in the application, nothing can be done about it without governance (a good example is the parity wallet bug in late 2017) in the Ethereum network. If the application requires a new feature in the Ethereum Virtual Machine, the application will in turn depend on the governance of the Ethereum platform.

Cosmos has the following solutions for the problems described above:

This is how Cosmos technology works in detail

Cosmos’ open source technology is essentially based on three core components: the Tendermint Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) algorithm, the Cosmos Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol. Together they represent three core components of the Cosmos (ATOM) ecosystem.

Tendermint BFT

Tendermint Core is a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus engine that bundles the network and consensus layers of a blockchain into a generic engine. This allows developers to focus on application development without having to worry about the complex underlying protocol. The Tendermint BFT has a block time of 1 second and should be able to process a transaction volume of 10,000 transactions per second for 250 byte transactions.

This is made possible by horizontal and vertical scaling. The vertical scaling includes the scaling of the blockchain itself. Tendermint BFT will enable thousands of transactions per second through various optimization measures (e.g. the renunciation of a proof of work).

The horizontal scalability takes place beyond the boundaries of the individual blockchains. The processing of large amounts of data takes place across several blockchains (multi-chain architecture). The idea is to have multiple parallel blockchains running the same application and operated by a common control instance. This makes the blockchain architecture theoretically infinitely scalable.

Cosmos SDK

With its Cosmos Software Development Kit, the Cosmos platform aims to create a friendlier and more customizable solution for developers, where they only have to concentrate on the development of the applications and not on the layers below. With the SDK Cosmos wants to reduce the development time of a blockchain from years to weeks.

The SDK is based on two main principles: Modularity and performance-based security. Modularity means that the goal of the Cosmos SDK is to create an ecosystem of modules that allows developers to easily create application-specific blockchains without having to re-program every functionality from scratch. Performance-based security means the ability to limit the security boundaries between modules so that developers can limit unexpected (harmful) interactions.

Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol

The third component is the Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol, which enables communication between all individual blockchains. IBC uses the instant finality feature of the Tendermint Consensus to enable heterogeneous blockchains to transfer tokens and data to each other. However, to be compatible with IBC, blockchains must meet an important requirement. The consensus algorithm must have a fast finality.

In principle, all blockchains are compatible with IBCs, whose consensus method uses a rapid finality. However, this is a characteristic that many blockchain projects do not fulfill. For example, all crypto currencies that use a proof of work consensus (e.g. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin) do not fall into this category.They have only a probabilistic finality. Only when Ethereum for example switches to Casper FFG (Proof-of-Stake), a direct connection between the Ethereum Blockchain and the Cosmos ecosystem would be possible.

For blockchains that do not have fast finality, however, there is a more complex solution. This creates a special type of proxy chain called the “peg zone”. A peg zone is a blockchain that tracks the state of the other blockchains and itself has a rapid finality so that it is IBC-compatible.

Source: https://cosmos.network/assets

These two solutions allow not only Tendermint-based blockchains to interact with each other, but any kind of blockchain. Another problem is the scalability, because the number of connections in the network grows exponentially with the number of blockchains. To solve this, Cosmos proposes a modular architecture with two classes of blockchains: “hubs” and “zones”.

“Hubs” und “Zones”

A hub is a blockchain whose purpose is to connect “zones” with each other. “Zones“, on the other hand, are application-specific blockchains in the Cosmos network (e.g. Ethereum or Bitcoin) that can communicate with each other. This usually works by connecting to hubs via the IBC protocol. When a zone establishes an IBC connection with a hub, it can automatically access any other zone connected to it. As a result, each zone only needs to establish a limited number of connections with a limited set of hubs.

Hubs also prevent double spending between zones. Thus the hubs act as the main sources of “trust” among the blockchains, rather than forcing the blockchains to a common consensus by going through the same consensus mechanism as the tokens for transmission. This means that when a zone receives a token from a hub, it must only trust the “origin zone” of that token and the hub. In addition, each blockchain can select and operate its own governance model (proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, delegated proof-of-stake, DBFT, …).

This creates a series of interconnected zones and hubs that operate independently but share a common system architecture. This is a basic principle of Cosmos (ATOM) for the exchange of tokens, data and digital assets across different blockchains.

Source: https://cosmos.network/assets

The first hub launched on the Cosmos network is the Cosmos Hub. This is a public proof-of-stake blockchain that uses the Tendermint algorithm and whose native token is ATOM. The Cosmos Hub serves as the central hub of the network and holds the independent blockchains together under one roof.

The Cosomos (ATOM) Token

Cosmos has a total supply of 237,928,231 ATOM, of which approximately 190 million are in circulation (as of August 2019).

During the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of Cosmos (ATOM) on April 6, 2019, 168,475,963 ATOM were released and earned the company behind Cosmos (ALL IN BITS, Inc.) $17.3 million in revenues. About 75 percent of the issued ATOM tokens were sold via the Initial Coin Offering. The remaining shares were held by seed investors (5%), the Cosmos Network Foundation (10%) and ALL IN BITS Inc (10%).

The ICO price was USD 0.10 with a 25% discount for seed investors. There was also a 15% discount for pre-fundraisers. ATOM reached its all-time high on 16 March 2019 at 8.31 US dollars, as you can see on our Cosmos (ATOM) course overview.

ATOM is offered on a variety of cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, Bitpanda, Huobi Global, Kraken, Bibox and OKEx. Trading pairs include BTC, ETH, USDT and fiat currencies such as EUR and KRW.

Partnerships

Cosmos already has some projects developed with the Cosmos SDK. The most prominent project is the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX), which is based on a fork from Tendermint and the Cosmos SDK. Binance DEX uses a revised version of the Tendermint Consensus and peer-to-peer network logic, as well as various Cosmos SDK functions. Other partners include

• OmiseGo
• FOAM
• Oracle International Corporation
• IRIS
• DATA Chain
• Loom Network
• ThetaToken

Conclusion: Is Cosmos worth an investment?

Cosmos is a very ambitious project which aims to build an internet of blockchains. For this purpose Cosmos wants to create an ecosystem that enables the interaction and compatibility of blockchains that are not yet compatible. However, there are numerous other projects in the crypto space that pursue exactly this goal and have only developed other technologies.

The best-known competitors are Cardano, Komodo, Wanchain, Aion, Ark and Polkadot. Some of the projects have been trying to solve the problem of interoperability between blockchains for some time. At this stage, it is difficult to say which project will ultimately prevail. The decisive decision factor will certainly be acceptance and dissemination through “Real World Use Cases”.

If you are interested in buying the ATOM token, we recommend to read our Cosmos-how-to-buy guide (ATOM).

[ratings]

Der Beitrag What is the Cosmos network and what are the benefits of the ATOM Token? Complete guide erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.

Chainlink addresses a major problem of the Ethereum  Blockchain ecosystem. In spite of the fact that with the technology of Smart Contracts practically every problem can be represented by programming, since Ethereum’s programming language Solidity is “Turing complete”, there is no possibility to establish a native communication with external systems. This significantly limits the potential and applications of the Ethereum Blockchain.

Chainlink has found a solution for this, the so-called “Oracles”. They establish a connection to the “outside world” by enabling access to external data. Thus, Chainlink technology offers any external programming interface (API) access to Smart Contracts that were previously isolated on the blockchain and had no access to external data.

Source: https://chain.link/features/

Oracles, however, are not a new invention of the Chainlink development team, but can already be found in the blockchains of Aeternity and Qtum. So far, however, oracles have been centralised services. This means that every smart contract that uses an external service has a single point of failure.

However, this destroys all the advantages resulting from the decentralised character of Smart Contracts. The solution is decentralized oracles developed by Chainlink. Thus the security and determinism of the blockchain and smart contracts can be combined with external data.

The Single Point of Failure Problem

Basically Smart Contracts create a completely new and revolutionary form for agreements of any kind. While classic contracts are easy to manipulate and break, smart contracts are deterministic. This means that the contractual agreements are always adhered to and executed as programmed in the contract.

This is guaranteed by the cryptographic technologies of the blockchain. This possibility offers a revolutionary potential. Especially in fraud-prone industries, such as insurance, international trade and finance, Smart Contracts can provide more justice and transparency.

The use of a single Oracle (= external data feeds), however, fundamentally destroys the reliability of the Smart Contract with a single point of failure. As ordinary oracles are third party services with a centralized checkpoint, the decentralized consensus mechanism of the blockchain is undermined. The operator of a data feed could manipulate the data and thus destroy the determinism of the smart contract.

In the worst case scenario, Oracle can even be operated by one of the parties involved in the transaction. The usual solution in today’s world, the involvement of an authority, i.e. a “Single Trusted Third Party” – an entity with a high level of trust – is also not a solution. This approach runs counter to the principles of the blockchain, according to which a consensus is always formed dezentral.

End-to-End Reliability for Smart Contracts

The aim of the Chainlink network is therefore to connect smart contracts with oracles that are reliable end-to-end and cannot be manipulated. Chainlink’s approach to the problem is a decentralized computing.

The Chainlink network allows multiple independent nodes to perform distributed calculations about the accuracy of an external input before it is written to a smart contract. Thus, Chainlink’s decentralized Oracle network offers the same security guarantees as the blockchain itself. The prerequisite for this is that there are several sources that provide the same data, such as the prices of cryptocurrencies: CoinMarketCap, CryptoCompare and Brave NewCoin Insights.

Source: https://blog.chain.link/chainlink-live-ethereum-mainnet-connected-consensus/

Chainlink creates a decentralized Oracle network that has all the tools to create any type of Oracle design pattern for Smart Contracts. The Chainlink software acts as an Oracle as well as a flexible framework to support Smart Contract developers.

The network consists of Chainlink nodes, each providing its own data feed, API or other external data source. In order to motivate the data suppliers to provide information, they are paid in LINK tokens. Basically, it should be possible for anyone who has external data to pass it on directly to the blockchain in exchange for LINK tokens.

How does the Chainlink network work in detail?

An essential idea of Chainlink technology is that the data provided by an Oracle is authenticated before it is passed on to a Smart Contract. An important component for evaluating the authenticity of external data is the Chainlink Oracle reputation system.

The rating system works similar to Amazon or Ebay. With Chainlink, however, the reputation is based on a large number of key figures, e.g. availability, response time and successfully completed orders. Technically, the Chainlink network consists of an on-chain and an off-chain component that communicate with each other to provide the service. The on-chain component consists of Smart Contracts implemented on the Ethereum blockchain.

These are Oracle Contracts that process data requests from users who want to access external data. You filter the data queries. As soon as the network receives a request, the Chainlink network converts it into an internal contract (3 individual contracts).

The contracts are responsible for linking the requesting contract with a suitable Oracle. In addition, the data is collected on-chain according to the query, the results are evaluated and the final result is calculated, which is provided to the Smart Contract. The 3 individual contracts each have the following tasks:

1. The reputation contract checks the reliability of the oracle against the reputation system.
2. An order matching contract captures the data request in the network and accepts the appropriate offers from the Oracle suppliers.
3. The aggregating contract collects the data from the selected oracles, evaluates it and summarizes it into a final result. This step is extremely important to ensure the integrity of the external data and to prevent manipulation.

The off-chain component of the network, on the other hand, is responsible for collecting the external data. It consists of Oracle nodes connected to the Ethereum network. The received data is processed by the Chainlink Core software, which is operated by each node in the network. It is responsible for the interaction between the off-chain infrastructure and the blockchain.

What is the LINK token used for?

The LINK token is an ERC677 token that takes over the functionality of the ERC20 token standard. It is used to pay node operators for retrieving data for Smart Contracts.

It is important to know that the LINK token is permanently operated on the Ethereum Mainnet. Unlike other projects (like EOS or Tron) that hosted their token on the Ethereum Blockchain until the Mainnet launch, Chainlink will always remain part of the Ethereum Mainnet. Accordingly, there will be no token swap.

The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) from LINK

The Initial Coin Offering of Chainlink (LINK) took place in September 2017. A total of 350 million LINK tokens worth 32 million US dollars were sold. This represents 35 percent of LINK’s total offering, which amounts to 1 billion tokens. The distribution of the LINK tokens looks as follows:

• 350 million LINK tokens sold in crowdsale
• 350 million LINK tokens are earmarked for node operators to promote the Chainlink ecosystem.
• 300 million LINK tokens went to the company behind Chainlink for development.

As of August 2019, there are only 350 million LINK tokens in circulation, which were sold during the crowdsales.

The Google Cloud uses Chainlink

In June 2019, Google announced in a blog post that the tech giant is working on a project that uses Chainlink. Google wrote in detail that they were working on applications that would store cloud-generated data on a blockchain.

To integrate the external data into the blockchain the Google project Chainlink uses. The data is retrieved from the company’s own data warehouse BigQuery and written to the Ethereum blockchain via the Chainlink oracles. Thanks to Google’s announcement, the LINK price rose by more than 30 percent in June 2019 in a single day.

Further Chainlink Partnerships

Chainlink has an impressive list of partners. Key partners include SWIFT, Google, Oracle, Gartner and IC3. In addition to Google, SWIFT in particular is a big name whose technology links over 11,000 financial institutions worldwide.

Source: https://chain.link/

Which wallet is suitable for LINK?

Basically, any wallet that supports ERC20 tokens is suitable for LINK. Our top recommendation for ERC20 tokens is the MyEtherWallet. If you want to know exactly how to set up and use the wallet, we recommend our wallet guides.

Conclusion: Is Chainlink (LINK) worth an investment?

From our point of view Chainlink can be a very interesting investment. It is the first and currently only blockchain project that tries to close the gap between Smart Contracts and the real world with decentralized oracles.

In contrast to the competition, the oracles that Chainlink uses are decentralized. LINK is the cryptocurrency that drives the network. Thus, the LINK price could benefit greatly if Chainlink becomes established and finds its way into the mainstream. Whether the partnerships mean far-reaching use cases in reality for Chainlink, however, remains to be seen.

If you are interested in investing in Chainlink (LINK), we recommend that you read our guide, how to buy Chainlink. We explain how to invest in LINK quickly and easily.

Der Beitrag What is Chainlink? A Guide to the LINK Token and the Technology of Chainlink erschien zuerst auf Crypto News Flash.